Hamster Comforts
by Blue-Inked Frost
Summary: This is a story about stories. Minsc, Boo, Jan Jansen, and Imoen are all trapped in the labyrinth below Spellhold aslyum, and are also trapped by their own past and sad present.


_Summary:_ This is a story about stories. Minsc, Boo, Jan Jansen, and Imoen are all trapped in the labyrinth below Spellhold aslyum, and are also trapped by their own past and sad present.

Written for smaller for the New Year's Resolutions 2014 challenge.

—

Minsc was desperately unhappy. Boo, who shared his feelings, had let his whiskers droop and his nose run. Even his fur was no longer crisp and upright but dull and flat.

Shadows flickered. It was dark. Minsc knew they were far away below the earth and the sun. Sweet Khelliara, the unicorn goddess of nature who helped Minsc with his connection with his animal companion, couldn't be felt here. The natural home for a Rashemi warrior was outside in plains and forests and ice lakes! Dungeons were where brave warriors went to fight evil skeletons and bad wizards and find bigger swords (Minsc did not take out the talking broadsword on his back, not now), not where there was nothing but deceptive corridors and the echo of many sad children and grown-ups crying forever.

Minsc's and Boo's eyes fell on the shadowed shape of their friend Rónach, who these days was never far from Branwen of Tempus. Rónach was never the same since they were all held captive by the bad, cold wizard with the mask of skin that covered his face. Rónach was once a brave, content young warrior from Candlekeep travelling on something that Minsc thought was like a dajemma of her own. Nowadays she carried her cold greataxe without a smile. The left side of Rónach's face was nothing but a mass of scars across her skin, her eye missing and the lines on her face coated with dark blue dye that would never wash out.

Branwen was a mirror's reflection of Rónach. She had changed greatly since Minsc first met her, when she was a bold human warrior who laughed willingly and sat peacably to break bread with friends. Branwen of Tempus was a yellow-haired woman from the north, muscular and of middle height, fair-faced and sea-green-eyed. She was cast out of her home isle of Seawolf for wanting to become a female priest of Tempus, but she saw it only a test of faith and remained stoic and untroubled. She was turned to stone by a wicked bandit mage, Tranzig, but she was returned to life by Rónach and Rónach's sister and acted to righteously smite that bad wizard! Minsc and Boo were happy to help them.

Now Branwen's right side, the opposite side to Rónach's scars, was made of splintered wood. Her right eye was a sickly yellow sapphire that burned with a diseased light. Her arm and leg had metal rivets in place of joints. You would think that the cold wizard with the skin mask had killed Branwen and mutilated her corpse, Minsc thought. Killing Branwen first would have shown mercy. The telthor and dimmithor spirits of Minsc's homeland would refuse any Rashemi who tortured another for any reason.

Branwen of Tempus was half flesh and half wicked device of wood and iron. The joins of bubbled, reddened flesh showed between her skin and the grafts. She did not die. She was mostly silent, for when she spoke her voice was an inhuman buzz like metal bees. She still wielded an iron hammer in fights and had become stronger, but Minsc saw only her foreign distance from everyone but Rónach.

Rarely far from Branwen and Rónach was Montaron, a small but fierce halfling. Minsc understood that the smallest were often the fiercest, but Montaron had bloodthirst and little honour. He was once a Zhent and now he was the prey of those bad people, and somehow in the course of their travels through Athkatla he'd become as if he was part of the blood and murder in Rónach. Montaron obeyed each order from Rónach to slip through the darkness and slit throats, and he fought grimly in battles.

Sometimes Minsc felt that Rónach and Branwen and Montaron had all left him behind, gone to lands of stern hatred and iron warfare so dedicated that even he could not follow. They cared about battle now and apparently about nothing else, not like Minsc and his Boo and his love of Khelliara's pretty forest flowers and soft forest animals. But maybe, Minsc thought, this was why brave and kind Dynaheir was not yet avenged. Dynaheir was his witch and protecting her was he object of his dajemma, and after the cold wizard with the skin mask killed her, Minsc had not seen him dead. How he would see that wizard and his skin mask dead! How that skin mask would be eaten by strong hamster teeth and trampled by boots of justice! But could they be Minsc's boots after the way that Minsc had failed in his duty?

Minsc's helpless look fell on Jan Jansen, the gnome in the dark. Jan's flickering candle melted to stick to his helmet was the only source of light for the party. Jan Jansen was a rotten wouldbe-hamster-stealing thief of a gnome, but at least he had some light. Jan Jansen was a renegade turnip seller with an exploding crossbow device. Jan Jansen dared to sneak Boo crackers that made Boo portly and Minsc's bedroll itchy. Jan joined the group and began his rotten, bad tries to steal Boo when he was trying to hide from the Amnian guards for tax evasion related to criminal turnip selling.

And then there was Yoshimo, the cheerful thief they rescued from the cold wizard's prison in Athkatla. His jokes had reminded Minsc a little of Imoen, he was nice to Boo, and he was a fine fighter when he wished to be even if Yoshimo was not as strong as Minsc. Minsc had liked that there was someone who could still smile in the group. Now, things were very different. Minsc did not want to think about Yoshimo.

Last of all there was the one that Minsc most wanted to save. She was a kind, good girl with hair like flowers who smiled and laughed a lot, and who was gentle with Boo. Her name was Imoen, a name as pretty as she was. Minsc met Imoen when she took his hand between two of her own on the Nashkel bridge, told him that she was going to help him rescue his witch, and said everything was going to be all right. Imoen smiled and made Minsc smile all through the battles they went through to save Baldur's Gate. She was clever like Dynaheir, even learning a little magic from Minsc's witch, and she liked to brush Boo's fur and tell him he was a fuzzy wuzzy hamster.

Imoen was stolen by the cold mage with the skin mask from the Athkatla wreckage. She was taken away by Amnian wizards with cowls and no faces, taken to an island far away from anyone who ever knew her. Minsc followed Rónach to save Imoen.

Now Imoen's colour had drained from her hair, leaving it the grey-brown colour of sad mice. Now so much was missing in Imoen's face, which looked like it was made of broken, cut flowers instead of living roses. Minsc and his comrades had found Imoen in Spellhold, but she had not said a word since they had found her. She did nothing unless someone ordered it, and she never looked at people. She only looked at a space behind people with eyes like glass. The cold wizard with the skin mask had stolen parts of Imoen that could never come back. Minsc wanted him dead, but more than that he wanted his friend.

Minsc and his comrades fought a lot of evil people and vampires to earn enough money for a boat. They sailed to the Spellhold asylum on Brynnlaw and snuck in like sneaky squirrels through the Spellhold kitchens. They searched for the cell Imoen was trapped in by the bad Cowled Wizards. But the cold wizard with the skin mask already ruled Spellhold. He captured them. Minsc's friend Yoshimo turned out not to be such a friend after all. They found Imoen the way she was. Then the cold wizard with the skin mask did something horrible to Rónach as well, and his wicked sister flung them all into the maze below Spellhold prison so that they could die here.

No one was near to Imoen. Rónach and Branwen were always together. Montaron sat isolated near to them, grinding a sword he had found in the depths of this maze against a stone. Jan Jansen was also by himself, and as for Minsc and Boo, they were together but alone.

Then Minsc saw Jan move closely to Imoen with the light.

"Gidday to you, lass," he said. "Or is it day or night? It's hard to tell. One of my second cousins, Ebbanezza Jansen, lived down in the Underdark where it wasn't possible to tell night from day or even up from down. Ebbanezza was a miner, where knowing up from down was quite necessary. She met her downfall when she found a cache of rare anti-gravity crystals some drow mage had buried.

"They next found Ebbanezza on the other side of the world in Chult."

Minsc saw that Imoen, oddly, tilted her head toward Jan.

"You're Rónach's dear sister from Candlekeep," Jan Jansen said. "Why, lass, I feel I know you already. In fact, our Minsc once told a tale of you rescuing a little girl's cat from a river. You dived in like a water-spirit from a ledge, to brave the whirlpools and at least three killer mermaids below! Then you rose from the depths like a siren, singing at the top of your voice that you'd found the poor little lass' lost kitty..."

"The cat was dead," Imoen said. Her voice sounded like a rusty, ancient sword being drawn from a lich's scabbard. But it was the first time Minsc had heard her speak since finding her in Spellhold. "The little girl's cat was dead all along when I dived in the water."

Minsc had come to her side, not daring to hug her, but close to her at last. "That is not the way that I told the story!" Minsc protested. "Jan is a bad gnome who is telling it all wrong."

The gnome tipped him a wink. "Poetic license, dear Minscy, just as your Boo is telling you." Jan continued to speak, before Minsc could correct him that Boo was saying no such thing. "I have another story, one I've been saving for the bowels of Spellhold asylum. Do you want to hear it, lass?"

Nobody else in the group responded. But then Minsc saw Imoen's nod, faint but there. He understood from Boo's wisdom that this was important.

"It begins with my third cousin's mother on our great-grandfather's side," Jan Jansen said. "Her name was Damisona Jansen and she was a cook. Damisona would make turnip pie, turnip salad, turnip macaroons, turnip nicoise, turnip pudding, turnip quinoa, turnip al dente, turnip meringue, turnip ratatouille, turnip nonpareil, turnip with sprinkles, turnip nougat, turnip tandoori, turnip harissa, turnip bacon, turnip sabayon, turnips quinelle, turnip goulash, turnip pat, turnip vichyssoise, turnip rarebit, turnip stollen, turnip tinctures, turnip vol-au-vent, turnip seviche, turnip lumache, turnip russe, turnip gazpacho, turnip julienne, mashed turnip, turnip polenta, turnip junket, turnip puddings, turnip cookies, and— Well, all sorts of other wonderful things.

"Damisona loved cooking. 'Twas her lifelong passion. Damisona said once that she didn't need a husband when she had cooking instead. She'd pour her heart and soul into her icing, and once a very little bit of her sweat, but if truth be told the customer who got that announced that he liked the perfume! She had an automated gnomish eggbeater half the size she was, and she'd sit on top of it to sail it along a great vat of soup she had cooking in an iron pot that was the size of her house. In fact, her vast iron pot was her house because she slept in it," Jan said. "Now where was I in my story? Ah, yes, Damisona Jansen loved cooking. Got up early in the morning to do it every day, and didn't get to sleep until she turned her oven back down to a simmer, waited for her little cousin Frideswide to finish all the washing up, and slept in the warmest corner of her iron pot.

"But, one day, Damisona suffered a dreadful tragedy," Jan said. "Damisona was mixing a whole batch of turnip chili for a convocation of gnomes with Jansen for their surname. Now this Jansen family gathering is always a gigantic, exciting event, for which I may have been approached as the judge of local nose length and magic competitions, or at least until the incident of the pepper, the glass, the host's young son, the demon summoning spell, and the expensive Shou vase. Damisona was to shock and awe us with the latest hot spicy imported condiments. She'd spent the day brewing this Abyss-cursed brew with a full collection of all spices it was possible to order from far-off Maztica, making a new concotion of turnip chili intended to explode in your mouth.

"The fact of the matter is that Damisona, in fact, exploded. She'd made a slight error in the proportions and the Maztican turnip chili literally blew up in her mouth. Some say that the explosion was the fault of little Frideswide, for being frustrated at always doing all the washing up, but I say that's malicious gossip. In fact young Frideswide went on to work for the House of Corthala as a dishwasher after the Maztican turnip chili explosion. It was a real sad pity that the lady of the house accidentally turned herself into a lich and her husband into a zombie and then their son was obliged to slay them both, but malicious gossip about the blame just isn't worth listening to. Why, dear little Frideswide is still working as a dishwasher. Indeed our group came across darling Frideswide only recently, where she was employed as a dishwasher in the de'Arnise keep at the time a deadly incursion of trolls and yuan-ti were secretly let into the keep by a person or persons unknown. Of course we brave adventurers saved the day, and our little Frideswide is probably still using her dishwashing expertise somewhere."

Minsc had no memory at all of a gnomish dishwasher when they saved Nalia de'Arnise's keep from trolls. But Imoen's head was aligned as if she was listening to Jan Jansen's tale as he went on. "I hear young Frideswide is now employed by a nice Amnish aristocratic family called the Dalrymples, or possibly Delreens, or was it the Dalryns? Or did she instead accept that post with some circus in Waukeen's Promenade?" Jan said.

"Back to the story of Damisona now, for the explosion in her mouth did not kill her. She steamed a little out of her ears, nose, and other places I won't talk about, all of her false teeth and fillings flew out of her mouth, and she lay in a dead faint for seven days and seven nights. She'd fallen into the middle of one of the bunches of flowers for the Jansen family gathering, so she was accidentally displayed as a centrepiece until we found out. Then Uncle Gerhardt Jansen patched Damisona up to be almost good as new.

"But after the exploding Maztican turnip chili, Damisona soon discovered that her sense of taste was no more. She'd been burnt so badly in the mouth and the nose that everything tasted like charcoal to her, even turnips. No longer able to pursue her life as a chef, Damisona was devastated. She tried one last time to cater for a grand dinner, but when she served twenty Amnish nobles fine dishes of what turned out to be cheese-broiled charcoal instead of charcoal-broiled cheese, she knew it was over. No-one can be a cook if they can't taste the results; following recipes can only get you so far," Jansen said. "It's the same as in life. You have to get in there and find what it's like yourself."

"For Minsc and Boo there is no other way," Minsc earnestly declared. "Minsc and Boo CHARGE IN AND FIGHT EVIL AND MAKE EVIL WIPE EVIL'S STINKY BOOTS ON THE DOORMAT OF JUSTICE! We do by doing," Minsc said.

He thought that was just like the way Imoen used to be too. Imoen wanted to be out in the world adventuring. She told Minsc and told Dynaheir that she liked seeing the world with her friends more than the stuffy old books where she was from. This Imoen looked alone and lost, but now she was looking at them.

Jan Jansen gave Minsc an irritated glare through his eyeglass. "You're interrupting my story, Minscy! Let me return to Damisona Jansen the cook and her sad lack of any tastebuds. Damisona was finished as a chef, so she began to look around for new professions. She tried laundress, but because of her lack of taste and smell she'd mistake the cakes of soap for cheese and eat them, and then she would burp out bubbles large enough to lift her up in the air for brief periods of time. The small children loved the bubbles, but Damisona said that she didn't. It wasn't the lift she minded, it was the fall. Next Damisona tried her hand as tax accountant, but in enough time she realised what it was doing to her morals. Some professions just aren't suitable for even Jansens to touch." Jan shuddered. He'd said on their travels that he thought that tax accountants were worse than even demiliches to battle.

"I won't bore you with all the tremendously long and rambling stories about the other paths Damisona tried in life, such as aerial acrobat, necromancy test subject, therapist to exiled elves, and cat herder. None of these worked for Damisona, until she took a part-time job with some Cowled Wizard that led to her new path.

"Potion compounding, you see, is a delicate process that requires a careful hand with ingredients," Jan said. "And the way to test a correct potion isn't to taste it but to analyse the magical results. Damisona became a successful potion compounder, with a speciality in potions of combustion. After the wizard she worked for had a tragic accidental death relating to Shadow Thieves, Damisona set up in business on her own. She did a roaring trade with adventurers, Cromwell, Ribald Barterman's shop, Cowled Wizards, Harpers, Zhentarim, and even members of the Twisted Rune. Everybody wanted Damisona's potions of explosion, oils of fiery burning, and combustion tinctures. She'd found another profession to pursue and was perfectly happy. Until..."

"Until she found a hamster companion and was happier still, which is a very happy ending to the story?" Minsc asked. He'd become a little interested in Damisona's fate, and the best thing that could happen to anyone was a hamster of their own.

Jan shook his head. "No, Minscy, my lad, this isn't the ending yet. I'd reach it sooner if people did not interrupt me so often! Damisona's second career, unfortunately, ended when a potion of explosion went wrong and blew away both her hands. There was nothing left to even try to sew back on. So there Damisona was, with no sense of taste and two prosthetic hands, unable to make the fine manual movements necessary for combining ingredients."

Jan Jansen then let out a long, satisfied sigh and paused. Minsc and Imoen watched him, then Minsc turned to Imoen. She finally gave a nod. Jan continued.

"Damisona took her nest egg of funds and decided to go travelling for a little while. She saw sights which would make this story far too long, such as turnip-picking elephants on a small Chultan island, dragons with feet like lemurs from Kara-Tur, and the great rotating northern wheel at the flat edges of the world. Then at a ship port, Damisona met her final destiny.

"She fell instantly in love with a travelling Spectator Beholder from one of the other planes. He didn't have any hands either, only four long eyestalks, and he got along in life just fine. And now Damisona and the Spectator Beholder are happily married with a few little beholderkin of their own. With Damisona's two hooks for hands, there was only one profession best for her...space pirate. They call her Red-Hooked Damisona, and there's not an interplanar vessel now that won't surrender at the sight of her flag. That's the end of my story," Jan Jansen said. "You may now applaud. ...No? Well, that's because you haven't heard the moral to Damisona's story.

"_Beauty is in the eye of the beholder._"

Jan Jansen settled back with a satisfied smirk. Imoen was watching with a disturbing eagerness. Minsc opened his mouth.

"I have a story to tell too," Minsc said. "It's one for an old friend, that Boo and I have only just met again." Boo squeaked his agreement. "This story is about a ranger," Minsc said.

"Once upon a time, there was a ranger in the cold but beautiful land of Rashemen. There are many snowdrifts and ice lakes that become a beautiful blue in summer, where brave berserker warriors dive into the coldest waters in all the seasons to show their courage. There are wide plains and fields of soft grasses, where travellers step lightly and give offerings to the telthor spirits. There are mountains as smooth as glass with bracing air fit for the strongest warriors and their hamsters."

Minsc paused. Words were nothing compared to butt-kicking, but he remembered home. It felt like Rashemen did not exist below Spellhold asylum. This dark labyrinth was far away. But he wanted Imoen to believe in Rashemen outside the asylum, and so he told her about his homeland. "There are pale star-shaped flowers with yellow hearts that grow in the cracks of the mountains even when it is winter. In the valleys in spring, the flying squirrels come out, the moths with the moon painted on their wings, and the flowers bloom by the blue lakes. There is the soft blue bysvanikh that we call wandering-iris, the honey-sweet radkamed with the sweet centres, and then there are the pink ones. The pinks are the nicest. Every spring, I remember that the pink flowers with the soft petals were the best to pick, when the Rashemi children make garlands for the spirits of the land and to wear in their hair." He patted his shaved head. Imoen raised a hand to her hair also and laughed bitterly to herself. Imoen's hair used to be like the flowers, Minsc meant to say, but he could not find the right words. He had only hurt her.

"This ranger was once a big man and a smart man," Minsc said. "He was accepted into Khelliara's service when he reached the age of manhood and did well in his tests of strength and battle rages, so he hoped to enter the Ice Dragon Berserker Lodge. But then dark times came when bad Thay led attacking mages and soldiers into Rashemen's borders. The young ranger had to fight, and he wanted to, because he would fight for his homeland and to be accepted into the Ice Dragon Berserker Lodge.

"There is great fun in battle but sometimes there is also great loss. Boo does not advise to talk of it. In this battle for Rashemen, the bad Thayan mages were driven back. That is all that needs to be said. During the battles, the ranger had many head wounds. After the last battle, the ranger was wounded so badly in the skull that he did not wake up for a week. He had changed. He was not so smart as before and he was often confused. But the ranger goddess Khelliara was still with him, and his battle rages were even stronger! He would shout that he was going to lead with his sword into the black heart of evil and not rest until evil's pointy teeth were all plucked out by the root!

"The master of the Ice Dragon Berserker Lodge rejected the young ranger because his head wound had changed him. The clan elders did not want the young ranger to call himself a ranger. He was told to stay quietly with his kin and rest and never go to war again. The ranger's honour was lost and he felt that he was not a man any more.

"But even though his head was wounded, the ranger's heart was not. The ranger found friends in an unexpected place. One of the Rashemi witches, the wychlaran, was to travel on a dajemma to barbarian lands. This witch was young but very, very smart. She was so smart that she seemed like she was not young at all. When she was a little girl she also seemed the oldest of all the children, and she liked to protect her small cousin from bullies and help him gather pink flowers in the spring. But that is not important to the story. This wychlaran needed a bodyguard, and the ranger was offered to her. She became his witch! He could go on his dajemma now, become a man, and join the Ice Dragon Berserker Lodge after all. The ranger was very happy.

"And the ranger made one more new friend not long after the time that he and his witch left on their journey. They saw an elderly stallholder wearing red who smoked a pipe, and this stallholder sold miniature giant space...pets. This ranger bought an animal companion, so he was now a true ranger, and his life was changed for the better forever!" Minsc said. Boo squeaked.

"But then the ranger failed again," Minsc said. "The witch was his charge. She went where he went, doing good and being smart. She was his witch but the ranger was not a true guardian. He failed his witch. She was killed in front of him, before his very eyes, but her guardian ranger did nothing! His dajemma could never be complete. He needed a witch to protect. But at least the ranger had friends he found..."

Minsc reached close to Imoen. His witch Dynaheir taught little Imoen some magic. The night before they were captured, he remembered that Imoen made a pink glittering dragon out of fire and flew it around the camp, laughing as it blazed next to her head the same colour as her hair. Later, it was Imoen's magic that made the bad Cowled Wizards take her to Spellhold asylum, along with the very worst evil wizard of them all.

"And perhaps," Minsc said, as the story, or maybe Boo's wisdom, seemed to reach up inside him and grab him to say something new, "perhaps the ranger can find other kind witches to protect, his good friends.

"Like Boo. Boo is your friend." Minsc carefully held Boo out between his hands to Imoen. "Please hold Boo. He will make you feel better."

And, bit by bit, Imoen touched Minsc's hands and Boo climbed from one to the other. Imoen held Boo in one hand and stroked his fur with the other, just the way Boo liked to be skritched between the ears and down his spine. Imoen remembered Boo. She held him close.

"Hamster comforts, is that it?" Imoen said with a voice as low and cracked as a zombie's moans before the zombie would be crushed by the boots of justice and by magic like little Imoen's. "Listen, I gotta story for you too. It's a good one. It's a funny joke.

"There was once this girl, see," Imoen said, "who thought adventuring around the continent would be more fun 'n a barrel of monkeys wearing funny outfits with advanced degrees from the Candlekeep College of Fun. So she ran away one day 'cause she thought her six-foot-two adorable baby sister needed someone out there to look after her. And she met nice friends, and even when times were bad it seemed they'd win through. This group of adventurers and this girl, they found the bad guy who was causing all the trouble, they stopped him, they were heroes, end of story. Nothing bad should happen to heroes.

"Then this girl woke up as a prisoner in a dungeon. She felt like millions of tiny skeleton fingers were crawling up her skin and wouldn't let go. There was a dagger of bone inside her head, and it kept cutting, it kept on cutting. The girl tried to escape with the magic her friend the witch once taught her, but that only got her in worse trouble.

"The girl went to a grim grey prison for crazy mages which only made everyone who was there become crazier, and then things got worse when _he_ took over. And then he took the girl and strapped her to this machine, and stole something important from inside her that she'll never get back. The girl's friends came too late. She already had things taken away from her. Then the bad wizard's evil sister threw us into a labyrinth below the ground to die—see, isn't it clever, that means people don't need burying if they die underground already—and they won't get out.

"But at least the girl had friends with her. And a little hamster to comfort her," Imoen said. In the flickering candlelight, her brown eyes looked directly at Minsc for the first time. "'S good you brought Boo."

"There is an ending to the other story," Minsc said. He didn't look away from Imoen and Boo, not even for one blink of an eye. "The little girl's cat was dead when brave Imoen dived into the waterfall to bring her out, but the little girl had a father who lived nearby with her. The little girl's father was a nature priest of Nobanion. Nobanion is a god sometimes called the King of Cats, and he is a nature god just like sweet Khelliara. All cats big and small are his friends. The little girl took her cat to her father. Her father asked the Lord Firemane, Nobanion, what he could do. It turned out that the cat still had four lives out of the nine lives of a cat left. Nobanion helped the little girl's cat to be alive again, and Imoen and Minsc and Boo and the little girl and the cat and everyone else were very happy.

"And everyone lived happily ever after.

"That is the way that all stories should end." Minsc nodded fiercely. He had finished his story.

"Minsc!" Imoen said in a whisper that was mostly a sob. She lurched forward, Boo clutched between her hands and against her heart. She hugged him, all cold skin and sharp bones, and Minsc tried to give all warmth and kindness to her. She drew out an arm to Jan. "You too, new friend."

In the mad labyrinth below Spellhold, hamster and ranger and witch and hamster-stealing gnome all hugged each other, and Minsc knew the hamster-stealing gnome was not stealing any hamsters at the moment. They were friends together. Boo chirped.

Minsc could not yet see how an escape from Spellhold could be found, but with hamsters and rangers and witches and hamster-stealing gnomes and friends, he felt happy even in the dark.

—


End file.
